A side view of the TIV, a revamped Ford truck armored with 8,000 pounds (3,630 kilograms) of steel plating.

Filmmaker Sean Casey, who designed the TIV, has been decorating his creation with twister logos, as pictured along the nose of the vehicle, to benchmark successful encounters. Black logos mean the team merely made a sighting, while red logos mean the vehicle entered a tornado.

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